


Lifelines

by catsndogs



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Character Development, F/M, Long-Term Relationship(s), Post-Revival, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-25 02:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6176989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsndogs/pseuds/catsndogs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the beginning, Scully and Mulder had an atypical relationship.  Why would they have a typical break-up?  This takes place after season 10, episode 3 but doesn't have much in terms of spoilers for the revival and even fewer for the series.  Chapter 1 is from Scully's POV and chapter 2 is from Mulder's.  I had to shift the rating once Mulder weighed in but it's still light.  Not much dialogue here, mostly feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scully

 

  Special Agent Dana Scully closed her laptop quietly, partly to keep from disturbing Daggoo in his underseat dog-carrier and partly to keep from waking her equally unconscious partner in the window seat.  An inkling of a headache was starting behind her eyes, and she leaned back to release some of the tension in her shoulders.  It had been years since she developed headaches when flying; it used to be a common occurrence when last with the FBI, one she thought she had shed.  She considered the headache payback for insisting they take a red-eye back from Washington state instead of a reasonable time the next day.  

Mulder accepted her excuse that she didn't want to risk another peeping-tom motel and didn't put up an argument.  In fact, he had been very quiet since coming back from the woods.  He had hovered nearby as she finished filing her arrest reports and paperwork for their flight, covering their concealed weapons and permission to bring an undocumented dog onto the plane.  Any other person might have thought Mulder had lapsed back into the melancholy he had at the start of the case, but Scully had watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye.  His silence was bemusement, not disillusionment.   When prodded, Mulder mumbled something about were-lizards and the length of hibernation.  

Scully suppressed a sigh.  It had taken a couple hours before Mulder had stopped smelling like alcohol and acetylaldehyde.  She always had a keen nose for when people--especially her partner--overindulged their alcoholic beverages.  She was unsure how much Mulder believed in the were-lizard scenario and how much he attributed it to what she suspected was the consumption of a significant amount of alcohol.   

Her final field report had taken longer than she expected.  She had stared at the blank screen for several minutes before a few false starts, stumbling over her choice of words.  She decided it would be best to omit any reference to alcohol. It had been years since she had to carefully word her conclusions.  Scully found herself shaking off the dust from phrases like "cannot substantiate"  "Agent Mulder's eyewitness account"  and "unable to verify", but finally they spilled off her fingertips like echoes of old friends.  When she had saved the report for submission, she felt she had done it justice.  

Scully slipped the laptop into the bag at her feet.  Habit had her checking the side pocket for her emergency cell phone, though it got very little use now that the X-Files had reopened and pulled Mulder back to the land of the living.  She grimaced at the number of times she caught herself checking for the outmoded phone, realizing she kept track of it more often than her official cell phone and gun combined.  

She ran her fingertips over the phone cover. When he had set them up, Mulder had chosen a conservative embossed leather case for her and a neon UFO over a starlit night for his. On the technology scale, the phones were now dinosaurs, but they had been state of the art several years ago. 

Mulder had insisted on purchasing them as part of his way for them to be "on the grid without being identifiable as Mulder and Scully on the grid."    He had siphoned off a connection from a fiber optic cable and bounced an internet access spot to their house using a variation of a technique worked out years ago by the Lone Gunmen.  Through intermediaries with cash from random choices on craigslist, he had acquired their phones and anonymously worked with someone who taught him how to piggyback their phone signals into the background of rotating corporate accounts.  And the signals were coded, the texts scrambled, the electronic date/time stamps shifted, and the GPS coordinates slid a few hundred feet from reality.  If his machinations weren't so paranoid, Scully would have been impressed.

Latching her traytop into the seat in front of her, Scully resisted looking sidewise at her partner. Over the years, Mulder's paranoia had made him an expert on government surveillance, but his passion and intellect also maintained his expert status on all things unexplainable. He was the only man she knew who could return to the X-Files ranting about how many cases could be explained away as "fraternity pranks, practical jokes or people making stuff up" but still find the fantastical among the mundane within a few short hours. She found it ironic that the subject of monster hibernation had pulled Mulder's dedication to finding the truth in anomalies from its own hibernation. 

She had briefly mentioned Tooms in her report. Tooms had hibernated on a 30 year cycle, the mothmen about double that.  She was sure Mulder would be able to pull out an X-File on some rock creature with a hibernation cycle spanning centuries.  Was it that inconceivable that another lifeform could hibernate longer?  But if the were-lizard part of the case didn't stretch incredulity, the ten thousand years did.  Would mankind be around when he next awoke?  

  Mulder shifted next to her, and Scully pushed down the temptation to tuck his flimsy airplane blanket closer.   She noted with no small amount of regret how Mulder was leaned away from her against the darkened window.  His legs were stretched out but still on his side of the metal under-seating.  It wasn't that long ago when he would be resting against her, his leg brushing hers and sending warmth along her skin.  Her gaze swept over the hand that the blanket failed to cover.  The long fingers and strong wrist brought memories and a blush to her cheeks, and she was thankful for the darkened cabin.  Years ago, Mulder would spend hours trailing those hands over her skin, following them with his lips and tongue.  

Scully felt her heart and breath betray her and accelerate. She gritted her teeth with determination and reminded herself: you left him, remember?

Since their reunion, Mulder had been cautious about her personal space.  Cautious in Mulder-standards, that is.  He still stood a hair closer than most people when they talked, and a good deal closer than that when he was passionately arguing a point.  She knew he was trying to respect their partnership or what he thought she would want for a partnership. Mulder was restrained.  While she would occasionally feel a hand brush against her lower back or a guiding touch at her elbow, they were rare compared to the frequency he used to pepper their interactions so many years ago.  His warm, smooth voice still surrounded her with it's timbre and layers, but she didn't think he was aware of how much of an intrusion it was to her carefully crafted world.   

   When they had both been invited to re-start the X-files, Scully had expected awkward.  Now that they were squarely in each other's company, she had not expected how much she missed those looks and touches.  It was in these quiet times that made her realize how hollow she had felt without him.  She had thought she filled her life to overflowing during the past few years.  Her family, her nieces and nephews, her devotion to healing through her work, they had all provided a warmth in her life.  But in Mulder's presence, she knew that they were nothing compared to the bonfire that was him.  

She could see that now. 

She could *feel* that now.

   The sun was starting to cast a faint glow on the horizon.  They would be landing soon.  Scully pretended to watch the slowly paling sky but was watching her partner more.   Three years ago, she had walked away, telling Mulder that she could not stay and be buried under his obsession, under the stranglehold UFOs put on her very existence.  With his eidetic memory, he had thrown those words back at her.  But they had bounced off harmlessly because underneath it all, they weren't true.  Sveta also missed the mark when she said Mulder's depression had killed the relationship.  Logically, it had, but Scully knew that the real reason was her own sense of helplessness.  

For the first time in their relationship, she couldn't save him.   The stranglehold was not UFOs; it was her failure.   She had tried to lift him from depression. She had thrown life preserver after life preserver. She had cajoled, wheedled, fought, cried, but each attempt reinforced her lack of effectiveness.  He had tossed or flushed the prescriptions she brought home.  He had scoffed derisively at her suggestion for therapy, stating "I have a f---ing degree in psychology.  I don't need to pay to talk to someone else who does too."  He had pushed her away. After months of futility, she had finally yielded.

   She had left him those years ago, but had she?  Her body and mind had moved out but it felt like her heart, was in disagreement.  Like a compass, she felt as if she always knew where Mulder was.  And through their emergency phones, she did.  She was sure if she could check the logs, it would show her looking for Mulder's GPS coordinates several times a week.  Over the years, they did not talk about the connection, but they each kept the locator application on the phone and they both kept their phones charged.  

Occasionally, there would be a text.  The first year apart was one-sided.  She would text him on holidays or his birthday, with generic well-wishing.   The phone would mock her in it's silence but she took meager reassurance that the GPS locator functioned and the phone was active. She would sometimes stare at the little dot on the screen marking their home, or more accurately a location 0.29 kilometers southwest of her former home.

  The first time he texted, on the anniversary of Melissa's death, it had been two letters "TS". In response, Scully had spent the evening weeping.  It had been his code abbreviation for "touchstone", a goofy adjustment he long ago made to an endearment because he knew she disliked them. It had become his catch-all text to express affection when their love was young and new. Scully could not bring herself to text him back that night, suspecting she would rush into his gravity well and never escape again. However, it had started their infrequent text exchanges. She had sent him a congratulations when she saw his paper published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration under a recognized pseudonym. He had sent another "TS" on their son William's birthday, and Scully had spent another evening maudlin and lonely. 

   Daggoo whimpered slightly, interrupting her thoughts. Scully leaned over and gave the dog a reassuring finger wiggle through the bars of his cage, and he settled.  The airplane chose that moment to hit an air pocket, but a firm hand steadied her shoulder before her forehead could bump the seat in front of her.  Sitting up, she looked over at Mulder who remained leaned against the wall of the airplane, eyes shut.  His hand had dropped back to his lap.  

When his eyes remained stubbornly closed to her inspection, she leaned back against her own chair, absent-mindedly rubbing her temple to chase away the headache. Sadness filled her but she pushed it down. Their relationship had always been built on trust and truth; she would have to trust that he would recognize the truth that she never stopped wanting to be his touchstone. That she had never stopped thinking he was hers.

  She continued to stare at Mulder as the weight of the overnight flight started to catch up with her. A selfish part of her wanted him to be the last thing she saw before she slept, because it had been so long since that had happened. Overall, Mulder seemed more settled for the first time since the X-Files re-opened.  If she were honest with herself, it was the first time in years.  He seemed to find an odd solace in the idea of something good--if quirky--outlasting all the alien and government conspiracies.  The disdain and emptiness that weighted him before this case had evaporated.  If she had known that all it would take is a were-lizard man that poked his head up every ten eons, she would have beat down the woods to find it years ago.  

His fingers lightly touched her knee. "Your thinking is keeping me up," he mumbled.

Scully couldn't keep her smile hidden. "Your sleeping is keeping me thinking," she answered. She hesitated a second before yielding to the temptation to lean against his shoulder. 

Mulder shifted so he could drape his arm around her, and made his chest her pillow. "Sounds like an impasse, Scully." The vibration of his words tickled her ear.

"That word isn't in our vocabulary, Mulder" she replied and settled in to enjoy the sound of his heartbeat.

****

 


	2. Mulder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay (on this and my other fanfiction All Creatures) but I wanted to finish this one first because it's only fair to Mulder that he gets his turn. I had to adjust the rating a bit because Mulder's thoughts run a tad darker.

Agent Fox Mulder leaned his cheek against the top of his partner's head, inhaling deeply the fragrance he associated with her.  Partner, he relished the word, a description he had valued within hours of their first meeting and never relinquished through many years.  Her hair was soft and fine against his skin and her face warm against his chest.  In the drowsy outskirts of sleep, he could almost forget that they had ever been apart.

Because Scully occupied such a large space in his life and his mind, it often surprised him how small she was. More times than he could count, he would turn to her when arguing a point and be startled that he had to look down to meet her eyes.  Resting against him, paradoxically she seemed delicate, even dainty.  Fragile.  Though a strong sense of self-preservation kept him from ever saying that to her.   She shivered slightly against him and he suppressed a chuckle at how the movement paralleled his thoughts and emphasized their size differences.  Despite her physics background she wouldn't appreciate his observation that she is colder because of her greater surface area to mass ratio.

Since her body had pinned the airline blanket between them, Mulder grabbed the material draped over his legs and flipped it smoothly so that it covered her instead.  Mulder resisted the urge to press it around her.  He also resisted the urge to hold her tighter.  He desperately wanted to squeeze her against him, feel as much of her body along his, caress all of her that he could reach.  Skirt the boundaries of what was publicly acceptable on an airline.  Cross the boundaries of what was publicly acceptable. 

But more than all of those temptations, he wanted to keep Scully from pulling away.  He suspected if he tried to deepen his embrace, it would abruptly end.  And he wanted to stay in this moment forever.

The emergency phone he carried in his pocket was pressing uncomfortably against his hip, but he didn't lean to adjust it.  Over the past few years, the phone had become an integral piece of him--partly vital organ, partly gnawing toothache.  It felt like it was embedded into him, but while it had been his only link to her, it became his lifeline to the world.  Because more than his stolen internet access, more than his scanning of files and classified photographs online and in his eidetic memory, more than his tight clasp on the puzzle pieces of truth he tried to assemble, Scully was his world.  

Mulder shifted slightly to press a feather gentle kiss along her hairline, barely more than a whisper. 

He remembered the last time he held her like this.  At the deepest part of his depression during their time apart, he had gone to an unofficial military base where his research had suggested experiments with advanced technology were being performed.  For the first time since she had left, he had turned his emergency phone off completely.  He had wanted to leave it on the kitchen counter. He remembered placing it next to the scramble of dirty dishes and paper plates, but somehow it had found its way into his jacket pocket like a magic ring of power.  He had no official plan for his investigation except the vague idea of obtaining evidence, proof of alien technology or conspiracy or another puzzle piece.

  However, crouched down in the shadows, waiting for an opening near a density of guards, Mulder had realized his hidden agenda--hidden up to that moment even from his conscious mind. Other than a small knife, he had no weapon; Scully had removed them when she left. But the craving to charge the armed men and end his miserable existence flooded him.

He might have done it.  The plan and action were barely separated by a breath. Except when Mulder had started to stand, his emergency phone had tumbled to the ground, the neon UFO bright under the full moon, staring reproachfully at him like a cyclops.  

He had gawked at it, feeling his mind overwhelmed by the surge of memories and emotions the sight of the phone brought.  Only one word surged to the top, beating down all other thoughts: Scully.  He did not know how long he stared at the phone. It felt like a millisecond and eternity at once. Eventually, he scooped up the phone and left, abandoning his project, not even looking back at the missed opportunity.  

When he had returned to the house, Scully's car had been parked in front and Scully had been sitting on the porch waiting for him.  It was as if his mind had called out during its struggle and she had responded. Scully was like a firestorm as they met--strong fingers smoldering over his skin, hot lips possessing every part of him that they touched--and he had gladly let her burn into him as they came together, her heat proving she wasn't just a vision of his deranged mind.  

Scully had only stopped them for one moment to pull the emergency phone from his pocket.  Her voice had been urgent and angry.  "Do not ever turn this off again," she had commanded.

Mulder traced a pattern on Scully's forearm through the airline blanket.  Later that night, on the bed, he had held her loosely, just like this, except that his hands had traced all over her beautiful skin. His body had felt deliciously heavy and satiated, though his emotions had remained unsettled. He had tried to memorize her by touch and not just by sight. Her beautiful smell, her taste, even the meager weight of her by his side brought a feeling of harmony he had not known he was missing.  When Mulder had finally drifted to sleep, he had the first dreamless rest in months.

When he had woken, Scully was gone.

He had expected it, but the panic had been difficult to push down.  Unlike the first time she had left, he felt raw and vulnerable.  He realized now that it was a different sort of awakening--an opening to the pain and joy he had previously lost.

Scanning the room, and later the house, he realized their was very little evidence that she had been there at all. The one he noticed first was that Scully had plugged in and turned on his emergency phone, setting it within arm's reach.  From that time, it had never been further from his hand than that.  Mulder couldn't count the number of times he checked her location on their emergency telephones.  He left it on within his field of vision most of his waking hours, stalking her electronically.  He learned how to translate the GPS location for when she was at her mother's or at her workplace.  He had narrowed down her new apartment building to half a block.  

Last year, when her GPS location had stayed overnight in an unknown novel location, he had watched it until the dawn started to creep through the windows.  He worried Scully found someone to replace him, as he always knew she could, as he always feared she would.  His anxiety had grown as the hours passed and the location remained static.  When he worked out the calculations to decipher her true position, Mulder was out the door and heading her direction before his mind fully realized it was Washington Hospital Center.

Emergency appendectomy. Not gunshot wound. Not alien abduction. Not bio-hazardous parasitic infection. Charging into her hospital room mid-afternoon, he had embraced the normality of an appendectomy. Scully had been asleep, but Mrs. Scully had looked up immediately from her bedside chair.

Her smile had been warm, though her eyes grim as they scanned him. They had sat in silence for several minutes before she said quietly, "She needs you to take better care of yourself, Fox."

Despite the chastisement, they had sat together comfortably, Mulder basking in the peace he only seemed to achieve in the presence of the Scully women. He left before Scully woke, and only because he sensed he would crumble in her presence, begging her to return home with him. He hadn't been brave enough to fall apart in front of Mrs. Scully in the harsh reality of daylight. But later in the soft black of night, he had found enough courage to text "Heal quickly TS" to Scully via their emergency phones. Over the past months, Scully had never responded directly to his sparse texts. But this one had received a "Thank you PH." PH had always been the only tangential endearment Scully would use with him, referencing back their undercover assignment in The Falls. It had always brought a tickle to his heart and that time had been no exception

As if his memories were seeping out of him, Scully shifted, her hand resting next to his hidden emergency phone. Mulder let his arm press upon her shoulders more heavily and started humming absently. He stumbled upon the theme song to O'Malley's Truth Squad theme music.  Scully made a muffled sound that was suspiciously like a giggle against his shirt. 

Hope that Mulder didn't know he held strangled within him, broke free, blossomed and coursed through him like electricity.  

He had come from unhappiness and the dark world of profiling serial killers and violent criminals, trailing shadows and the ugliness of humanity and conspiracies in his wake.  Scully's world had been saving and healing, the love of people and close family.  As their worlds collided, Mulder was reminded of the yin-yang symbol, he tainting her world of light and she bringing a spot of lightness to his dark. Sometimes, he worried his darkness would overwhelm her, blotting out all the joy she brought not just to him but into the world. 

When she had finally left him, Mulder had thought it the only way to save her. He realized now, that it was the only way to save him. Scully could not be his lifeline if she was pulled under his dark waves. He involuntarily tightened his arm around her shoulders. Scully was the strongest person he knew, and he had tested her strength often.  Silk on metal.  Clouds on mountains.  This woman could make him wax poetic. 

"Your thinking is keeping me awake, Mulder," she murmured against him, her soft breath permeating his shirt.

He smiled. "Think little baby cats, Scully," he said, giving her upper arm a slight squeeze. From the long years of experience, he could tell she was sliding into sleep.

"Little baby cats are for Dagoo." Her response was so soft, he knew he wouldn't have heard it if he were sitting upright. "I'd rather think of you."

Mulder closed his eyes, absorbing her words and letting them soak into every cell in his being. Partner, he held tight on the description. He would never let it go again.

**Author's Note:**

> This version of the interim years was inspired by the dialogue between Scully and Mulder I can hear in "Turnin'" by Young Rising Sons, especially if you sometimes substitute another L word for luck.


End file.
